Machinist Jim Celmer is watching to see what happens at the UAW convention this week, when top leaders are elected to guide the powerful union during the next four years.

“Everything I’ve ever had, I owe to Ford Motor Company,” he said. “I’m a third-generation Ford employee and a die-hard union guy. My dad or grandpa would roll in their graves if I bashed the union.”

Celmer, 54, of Dearborn has worked in five automotive plants over 29 years. And his wish list is basic: Job security, worker safety and slightly higher wages as auto companies increase profits.

Over the next four days, more than 1,100 UAW delegates and 2,000 union members from across the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico will descend on Cobo Center in Detroit. It is the 37th Constitutional Convention of the United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, who will elect officers, debate policy and vote on issues such as member dues.

All of this unfolds against the backdrop of job insecurity fears, proposed tariffs, political division, and a scandal that's led to indictments of former labor officials and Fiat Chrysler executives.

“This will be a more contentious convention than we’ve seen in years,” said John McElroy, a longtime industry observer and host of "Autoline." “The UAW has proved to be very resilient, even since Michigan has become a right-to-work state. They’re no longer mandated to stay in the union and we’ve not seen mass defections at all. Line workers have remained loyal to the union and its bargaining power.”

UAW President Dennis Williams, who retires this month, has emphasized that the union's books have been balanced for three years in a row, fully recovering from the economic downturn. Its membership has risen to 430,000 and profit sharing and wages continue to grow.

Member dues are expected to be a hot topic at the convention, and whether members should pay 2 hours of their wage per month or stay at 2.5 hours. That half hour matters to members. Based on average wages of $28 an hour, that results in an additional $168 per member a year, said Kristin Dziczek, vice president of Industry, Labor & Economics at the Center for Automotive Research.

“Multiply that by 138,000 'D3' (Detroit Three) workers and that’s a difference of more than $23.2 million,” she said. “The justification for the dues increase has been to build up the reserves for the strike fund and organizing.”

The UAW saw its finances fully recover in 2015 for the first time since the Great Recession. The strike fund has grown to $679 million, according to the UAW International Union. Total assets, which include buildings and other property, have surpassed $934 million. The union saw net income from operating funds increase from $5 million to $6 million in 2016.

After collecting $273.6 million in receipts in 2017, the UAW had nearly $1.6 million left in the bank at the end of the year. Net assets grew $85.5 million from 2016 to more than $947.2 million, according to audited data provided to the US Department of Labor released in March.

2019 talks loom

Union members in Michigan, Kentucky and Missouri told the Free Pressthey’re watching the auto companies net bigger profits and workers took wage cuts and stalled pay increases during hard times; so now is an ideal time for review. Auto industry contract negotiations begin in the fall of 2019.

“This is still the largest union in the United States in terms of assets,” Dziczek said. “It has the largest amount of money it sits on, but not the largest membership. In the states of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana – UAW wages set what wages are in the whole auto industry,” whether they’re unionized shops or not.

Still, the labor organization faces uncertainties.

"The UAW is at a crossroads. They’re reeling from a scandal that continues to unwind,” said Dave Sullivan, manager of product analysis at AutoPacific Inc. “The UAW has an opportunity to not necessarily reinvent itself, but show they’ve turned a new leaf. They need to succeed in showing that the behaviors associated with the FBI scandal don’t exist anymore.”

A few UAW members filed a lawsuit in January 2018 alleging contract talks were compromised by bribery involving Fiat Chrysler executives and former union negotiators. Seven people have been charged in the scandal and others are thought to be under investigation. The money came not from dues but funds earmarked for worker training.

The UAW represents more than 415,000 automotive workers, casino workers, college instructors and researchers, agricultural equipment manufacturers and aerospace engineers.

While that is fewer than one-third of its peak of more than 1.5 million members in the late 1970s, the UAW has seen increased membership over the past seven years, helped by organizing drives outside the traditional automotive industry.

New president

Williams is expected to be succeeded by accountant Gary Jones of O’Fallon, Mo., described by members as a steady hand who can effectively navigate the organization through times of change and uncertainty.

Jones, a regional director who oversees 17 states, including Missouri, Texas and Louisiana, and the West Coast, would move to Detroit if he becomes president.

He started with the UAW at the Ford plant in Broken Arrow, Okla. More recently, Jones served as the union’s top non-elected finance person for nearly a decade. His members work at Lear, Lockheed, Raytheon and the University of California.

The UAW has had success organizing college campuses on the coasts, including Harvard and the University of Connecticut. Many college researchers barely make rent while generating millions of dollars for a university, may wait months for paychecks or be required to work in laboratories with dirty water. The UAW offers expertise on job security, pay schedules, parental leave, sexual harassment protections, health benefits, fair wages and retirement, members said.

“We chose the UAW because it represents the most academic workers of any union in the country. And it bargains great contracts,” said David Parsons, president of UAW Local 4121, representing more than 4,500 graduate and undergraduate students and researchers at the University of Washington.

Wages have increased about 50 percent in eight years to nearly $2,500 a month, he said in February.

Labor observers question whether the UAW has lost its way, and loss of auto jobs has led to a narrative that it has lost its power. But the diversified membership keeps the union strong in size and money, providing financial resources — such as a healthy strike fund — that benefits the UAW overall.

Nearly 70,000 workers on college campuses are affiliated with Solidarity House on Jefferson Avenue east of downtown Detroit. In California alone, 33,000 postdoctoral researchers and academic student workers are affiliated with the UAW. Most work the University of California, California State University and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, which specializes in clean energy, supercomputing and atomic structure.

Auto manufacturing jobs continue to shrink as companies automate and build plants outside the U.S. Asian and European automakers and suppliers, which employ more than half the autoworkers in this country, have kept unions out of U.S. plants.

In 2017, the union lost elections at the Nissan plant in Mississippi and the Fuyao Glass America plant in Ohio. Anti-union materials showed images of what appeared to be a post-apocalyptic Detroit and warned of a UAW presence. Just prior to the elections, federal investigators made key announcements related to a corruption probe involving the UAW the the Detroit Three.

Despite the perception that the Southeast has been hostile territory for the union, about 13 percent of UAW membership is in the South.

While the UAW lost a high-profile vote at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee in 2014, VW didn’t oppose unionization until Republican state legislators threatened to withhold tax incentives for future plant expansions if workers voted to unionize. The UAW has since organized more than 3,500 members in Southern plants, including skilled trade workers at VW.

If member growth is a reflection of perceived value, the UAW is on track. Its dues range up to 2.5 percent of member pay — 50 cents of every dollar goes to the local chapter, 45 cents goes to international and 5 cents goes to the strike and defense fund.